Systems and methods for using a common control plane to control a plurality of access networks
AssigneeCable Television Laboratories, Inc.
InventorsJennifer Andreoli-Fang, Bernard McKibben
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method for using a common control plane to control a plurality of access networks includes (1) supporting a first communication link of a first access network using a control plane of the first access network, and (2) supporting a second communication link of a second access network using the control plane of the first access network. A communication system includes the first access network and the second access network.
Claims15
A method for supporting communication links, the method comprising:
- supporting a wireless communication link between a wireless base station and a user equipment (UE) device using a plurality of network functions logically linked via a common interface;
- supporting a wireline communication link between a wireline access network and an access device;
- and
- using a converged network slice function (C-NSSF) of the plurality of network functions to form a single end-to-end network slice for a data session traversing each of (a) the wireless communication link between the wireless base station and the UE device and (b) the wireline communication link between the wireline access network and the access device.
A method for supporting communication links, the method comprising:
- supporting a wireless communication link using a plurality of network functions logically linked via a common interface;
- supporting a wireline communication link between a wireline access network and an access device;
- obtaining, at the wireline access network, a traffic policy from a converged policy control function (C-PCF) of the plurality of network functions;
- and
- applying, at the wireline access network, the traffic policy to a data session traversing the wireline communication link between the wireline access network and the access device.
A method for supporting communication links, the method comprising:
- performing, in a wireline access network, authentication of an access device connected to the wireline access network via a wireline communication link;
- and
- sending, to a converged unified data management (C-UDM) of a converged core communication network separate from the wireline access network, notification of authentication of the access device by the wireline access network to apprise the converged core communication network of authentication of the access device by the wireline access network, without authenticating the access device on the converged core communication network.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.